Regional Formation and Development Studies

The article investigates the source of the historiographical topic of heroic paganism in the laments/elegies of Dionizas Poška (1764–1830). It is known that Poška read the manuscript of the first history of Lithuania (1822) by Simonas Daukantas (1793–1864). The article hypothesises that the choice of Poška’s written language ‘to lean towards the Samogitian dialect’, and the increase in a lexicon characteristic of the historiographical genre in the laments, are connected with his reading Daukantas’ manuscript. Since until now researchers into Daukantas’ legacy do not agree on the date of the completion of his first manuscript history, it is believed that research of this kind will make it possible to clarify it. The research leads to the conclusion that Poška read the ‘History of Lithuania’ by Daukantas in 1824, because in verse dating from that year we find a lexicon which is characteristic of Daukantas’ work. In elegies written after 1824, Poška found Lithuanian equivalents of the traditional topics of the heroic and lost nation, which are often taken from the text of Daukantas, and are not literal translations of Polish literature. Daukantas’ text inspired Poška to talk about a lost Golden Age, and so he can be considered a pioneer of Lithuanian historical elegy. Following Daukantas, the poet learned to replace rhetorical writing with an authentic expression of thought characteristic of Romantic authors.

The author demonstrates how the current refugee situation reflects the crisis of values within the European Union. Brexit and the election of Donald Trump in the United States have revealed that some western citizens are eager to restore traditional values and extreme order as an opposition to the current idea of democracy within the EU member states which leads to libertarian tendencies, and potentially to chaos. The conflict of traditionalist and libertarian tendencies among the European Union citizens most likely will increase, and this can lead to the further European Union disintegration. The case of Latvia and related analyses have shown that some Central and Eastern Europe countries will are not willing to accept refugees. Therefore, this study uses the grounded theory approach, based on historical facts and opinions of classical authors, while explaining that healthy and wealthy society should be based on an extended or at least on a nuclear family. In this paper, a case study of Latvian citizens’ attitudes towards refugees is used to support psychological hypotheses which are mainly of the theoretical nature. In the author’s opinion, it is important to understand that real traditionalism means democracy which is based on order and hierarchy. In contrast, libertarianism leads to the democracy where the family model is not supported and the whole system of values is corrupted. The author demonstrates on historical events that such attitude can lead to destruction of the whole society, and explains why virtues and family oriented systems have been established and promoted by classical philosophers and by religions.

The article examines the sermon of the famous early 19th century Lithuanian preacher Jurgis Ambroziejus Pabrėža (1771–1849) to East Prussian Catholics, named “Sermon on great Happiness”, given on the occasion of the Great Jubilee on June 29, 1827 in Drangauskine (near Tilsit). This is the only known sermon of J. A. Pabrėža given in Prussia. The language and spelling of this sermon differ from other texts of the same period. The word Gylukys (in German: das Glück) used in the title of the sermon indicates that the author was prepared to adapt the text to the addressee. The article examines which Prussian Lithuanian publications J. A. Pabrėža used to prepare the sermon in a language understood by the addressee.

The presented here article analyses the features of a language occurring in the border. The results were achieved by using the ethno-linguistic method, which is based on the systematic analysis of the ritual structure and vocabulary. The object of the analysis was a little fragment of the spiritual culture – the winter period of the ritual year. The structure of the ritual was established according to the methodology as well as the terminology of rituals, which includes several lexical-semantic microfields, was analyzed. The research was carried out nearby Vilnius (region of Vilnius, partly Širvintai and Molėtai) and also in the regions close to Byelorussia (Šalčininkai and Švenčionys).